Did I Hear That ?

Sipping coffee, half listening to the TV, I sat reading e-mail and feeding little old lady dog one morsel at a time when I heard the intro to the story about the 20 month old little girl that has been missing. I looked up to see the image of the child on the TV, then a statement was read that her father made. I gather that she was in his care when she went missing. Then they give the description of the clothes she was wearing and mention the cast on her arm. They go on to say that the broken arm was the result of an accident. Could be, kids do have accidents. But, then she goes missing.

So, I am then thinking of my own children and times in their lives when they had accidents happen that would have looked suspicious had they disappeared. The TV has my full attention now. The little girl is a little doll and I see the resemblance to the father. The parents aren't together and there is some talk about why the father has not given an interview to the media. A statement was offered in which he says that he is cooperating with law enforcement and is pleased with the efforts and then goes on to indicate that he doesn't want to add to the media circus. Says he put the child to bed and she was gone the next morning. Tastefully worded. Maybe he realizes he would not make a good impression and has wisely chosen to just release a statement. I don't know that I would even be able to be interviewed if my child was missing. Seems that the mother of the child is making a big deal about him "hiding".

Then, Matt Lauer interviews the child's mother. She is surprisingly calm. She seems to be more concerned about the father not talking to her than the fact that her baby is missing. She wants him to talk to her. She is not making a good impression with her appearance. She was in re-hab and the father was caring for the child. Matt asks her if she had anything to do with the disappearance of her baby. She doesn't appear to be disturbed by the question and replies in the negative. He then goes on to point out that she did not see the child for 2 weeks after being released from her stint in re-hab. She confirms this and then says that she saw her the first of November, then the 21st of November. She goes on to say that she was not filing for full custody, but was filing to get her parental rights restored ..........

 She implores the father to just talk to her. She says that she needs to talk to him because he was the last person to see her daughter alive. Really, she said that. Wonder where she is right this minute. The mother, not the child. Why would she say that ............ unless she knows.

Are The Puppies Gone?

I awoke to a shining sun this Christmas Eve morn. I stretched out as much as my canine children would allow and was rewarded with a pounce on my chest. I fumbled for my slippers and gathered the two elder dogs in my arms and took my crew out. I went about the business of water changing and filling bowls of kibble ...........

Then I remembered the overnight guests in my store! I quickly heated up some mushed up food for baby puppy and grabbed a bowl for bigger puppy. Bigger puppy is in heat, by the way and looks like she may already be in a family way. Poor little girl. They waited patiently while I brought the food. They are so afraid their food will be gone that they gulped it down without chewing or tasting. Then they went outside with me and took care of business and followed me back in. Wow, they are better behaved than my crew!

I left them in the store and was treated to some howling when I left to wake he who had to take them to the shelter. While he dressed I went in to tell the pups good bye. The older one gently licked my fingers, acknowledging that those were the fingers that fed her. She is a pretty little girl with a sweet face and long floppy ears. I allowed myself to cuddle the baby puppy and handed her off for the last time.

While he who loves puppies was gone, I wondered what I would do if he returned with them. My dogs were sniffing me suspiciously. Oscar was pretty indifferent, having been through additions to the family many times. Emmy wasn't even curious. Wall-E was wary and suspicious and would not let me pet his head. Toni was sniffing like a crazed animal. She loves to sniff and this kept her from paying so much attention to my eyes. She has an eye fetish.

We saw the truck at the same time. Wall-E was watching at the window and started barking right away to let us know that his Papa was home. Toni joined him and Oscar and Emmy stood watching as he opened the door ..........

I was watching closely for a tiny snout or paw. Toni had her head in the air sniffing and Oscar had a low growl rumbling. Emmy was tense as the door swung slowly open to reveal what was on the other side ..............

What are the odds that the shelter would be closed on Christmas Eve?

Ellen was wondering who had the odds on whether these sweet pups would make it to the shelter. My youngest daughter called yesterday while I was bathing the pup we called Sadie. She opined that I would end up on the reality show about animal hoarders. I did not tell her sister about the puppies, but I did tell her brother and also told him that his youngest really needs a puppy. She is a dog lover, my little Zara. And I did foster the puppy, Max, for Gavin .......

So what do you suppose was on the other side of the door besides my husband?

Nothing. No puppies. The shelter was open and took them along with the names we gave them. The woman who took them is confidant that they will find homes easily. We actually got our last dog, Toni, at the same shelter. She is a wonderful dog, sweet and affectionate .......well, if you overlook her eye fetish.

I know all my children are proud of me, cause we all know I could have kept those puppies if I wanted to.

Tis The Season ...........

 .....to dump your unwanted dogs on the side of the road.

 Really, how could you put this little pup out? I tried to get a picture of her teeth. They aren't even in yet. She must be about 4 weeks old and doesn't eat kibble yet.

 She was with this older pup. He who is an animal lover thought her to be the mother of the pup (we are calling her Sadie, by the way). She is in heat and is probably from a previous litter from the same mother. She is starving ...... well, not anymore, but she is bony and was trying to eat a dead, rotting rabbit when found. There was also a male dog, but he ran. My dog loving husband picked them up, because he was afraid they would be run over. Did he wisely head straight for the animal shelter?

No, he did not. He brought them home and fed the older one he is calling JJ. He likes her, she follows him. I was inside minding my own business of laundry and cookie making, when he walked into my line of sight with the little puppy cradled in his arms. Of course I reached for her, and oh my, did she ever stink! He announced his intention to take them to the pound, but was worried that they would not accept them, since they were found outside the city limits. But he wanted to feed the other dog first.

That is how Sadie ended up in the bath tub. Really, you did not expect me to cuddle a stinky pup, did you? She liked the warm bath and I found no evidence of fleas and one dead tick on her floppy ear. She is well nourished and very docile. Not affectionate, though. I would describe her as resigned. The other puppy growls at her, but I think it may be due to the fact that she has had to fight for food from the looks of her. They are both timid. 

 Yes, they are still here. Sadie is very content to be here, even though JJ won't share the kennel. They are in the store. The animal shelter was closed when he who reluctantly took them this afternoon. They will spend the night here tonight and we will try again tomorrow. I will make a little cornmeal mush with chicken broth for Sadie. JJ has already filled her little belly once. I am sure that both of them have worms and doubt very much they have ever been vet checked.

Wall-E and Toni Louise are not speaking to me. Oscar and Emmy are equally disturbed by the appearance of other canines in their midst. They need not worry. I have already explained to he who loves animals as much as I do, that 6 dogs is a bit much. What am I saying ........ four is a bit much, but I would never get rid of any of the ones I am already attached to. As tempting as it would be to swaddle Sadie and rock her, I will not! Really. I will not!

Scammers?

If you are familiar with my blog and my work place, you will know that the kampground is the main source of my writing material. Winter is slow. As hunting season is winding down, we will have those travelers just looking for a place to stop for a night's rest.

This past week has brought two requests for month long vacation stays. There is not much to do here in the cold months. So, I was surprised by the e-mail requests. I answered the first one and confirmed that I do not have cabins or RV rentals available and have not heard back form that one, didn't really expect to. I am left wondering how they found the e-mail address. If they found it, then surely they found the website that would have answered those questions and the other questions about attractions in the area.

The second request was poorly worded in such a way to make me think that English was not the primary language of the writer. It was a request for a family vacation for a month in January. With 3 children aged 6, 9 and 11 and two adults in an 18 foot travel trailer.

Strange enough yet? Just imagine being house bound with 3 kids in less than 150 square feet. I dutifully answered all the questions about my rates and the activities (or lack of) available that time of year and did not really expect a response.

Last night when I checked the site, there was a response. They want to arrive Friday and present me with a credit card to pay. Okay. Nothing unusual about that, you may be thinking. But ........... they want me to charge $1250.00 and be responsible for paying a caterer to bring their food daily.

I answered. I was polite with my refusal to pay the caterer and did not let my alter ego take over and accuse them of scamming me. They have not responded.

This past weekend was highlighted by a drunken driver in my park. He managed to plow through the railroad ties that line the side of the road meant to keep you out of the ditch. The truck ran over the foot bridge for walkers to use on the way to the pool. I know who did it .......... but can't prove it. So we just have to eat the damages.

Not fair? Life is not fair.   

In Sickness and In Health

 1974 was a very good year. I graduated from nursing school and landed my first job as a nurse in the emergency room. It was there that I kept seeing a particular EMT. I made it my business to be available to take whatever patient he brought in. Look at him, he is so cute. Brown eyes. I always wanted a brown-eyed child .........

I chased him until he caught me. That was 37 years ago. Today. Doesn't seem like 37 years. I look in the mirror and wonder why I see my dad looking back. I see all the years on my face, but I don't feel them. When I look at my sweet husband, I still see the man I married. I hope he still sees me as I was then.

Crabby

This feels like the roller coaster ride from hell. I never know what my mood will be when I wake up. Some days have been great and I think that I am on level ground again. Then the most insignificant thing can knock me down. I know that my sleep pattern is out of kilter, but it has been most of my life.

Besides that, all I did was sleep for a few weeks. Sort of. Like a series of naps. But, a lot of them. Sometimes I would fall asleep sitting up with my hands on the keyboard while writing. I did not post those rather lengthy and rambling epistles of doom and gloom. I would re-read them in my more lucid moments and decide to just delete them. You may thank me.

I have been unable to fall asleep lately. I toss and turn and get up with the animals I have made equally restless. I have deliberately kept the temperature low in hopes that the chill air would chase me to my covers and hopefully sleep. I have the thermostat set at 60. The fire builder has taken on the challenge of warming the house. We burn hickory wood from the downed trees on our property. It always smells like I am cooking a wood smoked chunk of meat in here.

The ill-fated trip to WalMart left me anxious and that sense of impending doom is back. The happy light didn't help yesterday as I counted the hours until bedtime. I have resolved not to crawl back under the covers in the morning and sleep until 10, or 11. No matter how little sleep I have managed. This does not mean I want to be up at the crack of dawn either.

He who drags his cell phone to bed can sleep through anything. Little things like the tiny light glowing on his charger do not bother him. He does not lay in the sleepless hours and try to make images out of the shadows it casts upon the ceiling. He can let it ring incessantly before lazily reaching for it.

He always makes a show of trying to be quiet. His efforts are pretty much in vain. He seldom succeeds. This morning, the phone rand around 7. I had been up at 1:30 and again at 3:30. I was hoping to sleep until about 8. Two of the dogs jumped out of bed with him. Did he take the two dogs out? No. They tapped danced across the floor as they followed him to the bathroom and then to the kitchen to retrieve his bubba mug, then back to the bedroom. All this with a million lights turned on. The lights hit the mirror in the hall and reflected into my face.

With all the lights one would think that he could gather the items necessary for dressing without much ado. No, he managed to bang open drawers and doors and knock items to the floor. It is my own fault. I have been known to lay all his clothes out for him and I should have done it last night. I didn't and I am truly sorry.

During his percussion performance I gathered the two dogs still in bed and took them out. He still had not taken out the two following him .......... they had peed in the floor. I saw the puddles and the footprints of he who stepped in it and tracked it through the house. Can't really blame the dogs, they were not the ones who had me up in the night. What is the very first thing you want to do when you get up in the morning?

For me it must be mopping, cause that is what I did. I usually take the dogs out, then take care of my business and then let them in. Seems like the logical thing to do. Then I get coffee and wake up to start my day. If my mate is sleeping, I do all of it quietly and with just the light of day to lead my way. I am, oh, what is that word ....... considerate? Okay, sarcastic, too.

So, having accomplished mopping, two loads of laundry, bed making, dog feeding, and removing some of the tile on the bathroom floor (yes, I meant to), I take a quick shower and dress for the day. My hair still wet, I see a car in front of the store. It is only 10 am and I have another hour, but I go to see if I can help the gentleman. It is the tax accessor. He wants to know if I have built anything this year. Since a bad attitude does not count, I answer in the negative and wish him a good day. He apologizes for waking me up.

My hair is obviously wet. Does he think it is greasy? And, just how bad do I look? It is true that I have yet to apply make-up, but I am freshly scrubbed clean. So much for my self-esteem. Why did he think I just woke up. I am not in my pajamas and robe. I am fully dressed. I even have a stupid holiday sweat on, proclaiming joy to the world. Now I am annoyed at two men. Somehow, I don't think today will be all that great.

Shopping and Other Things

Feeling better means that I have to get out and run my own errands. He who has been my errand boy left early this morning on a job that will keep him from home until a lot later this evening. He is on the road and unavailable to go to the store. His prescriptions need to be filled. He only has one day left on one of them. I want to do some baking and I need supplies, mostly butter and flour.

So, I get ready to go out into the big wide world. Don't want to, mind you. The memory of my last panic attack still too fresh in my mind. But, I drink my coffee and convince myself that I can do this all by myself. Errand boy extraordinaire has my little bug all fueled and ready for me (remember, I do not do this, being delicate and all). Dreary skies follow me all the way.

I have been ensconced in my sewing room with my happy light ablaze (thanks to my daughter and son-in-law) every day for at least 5 hours. This dull gray light is a little disheartening. I spy the state troopers positioned all along the interstate and I keep my speed just two miles over the speed limit. I make it to WalMart and turn in the prescriptions with instructions on how many I want of each one, then prowl the store for bargains and my list of necessities. I arrive back at the pharmacy an hour later and join the others in the long, long line.

Finally I reach the front of the line and am excited to be nearly done and on my way home. Because there were so many waiting and I was anxious to get home, I did not open the bag and check each prescription like I normally do. I was started to get that little tingle at the nape of my neck and knew I had to be on my way.

I loaded the car and got in and started the engine, carefully waiting for the glow plug light to go out. It can be a little cantankerous in cold weather. The gear shift did not want to come out of "park". It has done this before. I turned off the engine and tried again. It worked. I wanted to pick up an iced tea to drink on the way home, so I pulled out of the back side of the parking lot in order to go through McD's drive-thru. Two big trucks were blocking access, so I pulled into the parking lot of my favorite consignment shop ...... who knows, maybe they had a bargain I could not live without.

I did not linger long in the shop, not finding anything I wanted to give a second glance to and went outside to see that the street I wanted was clear. I was ready to be home and the shop had been stuffy and hot. Got in the car and it stuck in "park" again. I tried all my trusty little tricks. I tried everything I could think of. No luck. So, I called he who cannot hear. He is in Illinois picking up a truck. He shouts instructions to me (why do people who can't hear you assume that you can't hear them?). He tells me to do everything I have already done and nothing is helping. If I turn the key part way I can get the gear shift to move ...... But, unless you are in "park" or "neutral" you cannot start the engine and when you start the engine it won't move to reverse or drive. I was almost in tears and the panic was coming full on. I was blubbering about my butter melting and how I just wanted to go home where my happy light waits for me.

I finally agreed to wait for a tow to come get me and my butter and drugs. I started stuffing everything into as few bags as possible to be able to unload quicker. Then I decided to pick up all the trash that had accumulated. I pulled the emergency brake and after cleaning up and releasing the brake I decided to try again. For whatever reason it started and went into gear and I was able to drive home. I cancelled the tow (in case you were wondering).

Made it home and only two dogs escaped as I brought in the bags. Fortunately, it was the male dogs and they have had too many swats from my fly swatter to disobey my command to get back inside. I opened the bag with the drugs. As anyone who watches TV knows, there is a list of drugs that WalMart will fill a 90 day supply of for only $10. Knowing this, why would you get a 30 day supply for $4? And yet, I always have to tell them. Always. One of the drugs he takes is $70 a month, so I only get a 30 day supply. I am always hoping it might go down in price, since it is already the generic. They got that one right. They got all of them right except the cheapest one. It comes in those hated prepacked blister pack things. There should have been 3, there was 1. I checked carefully and the amount was right there on the 1 package as 90. I pulled it opened and counted to make absolutely sure that the packaging had not changed, but there were just 30. It happens. I called and asked to speak with a pharmacist, since I know that this is the only person who can fix the error. I must have gotten a newbie. She listened carefully as I told her what had happened, then she told me to hold on.

She did not put the phone on hold and I could hear her as she asked how to access the information relating to the prescription in question. She wanted to know how to tell if I was lying ........ Then she pulled up the screen with the image of the RX the doctor had written. She then decided that I had only gotten 30 because it was written for 30. Having worked at WalMart before, I could have answered all of her questions and told her how to pull that information up. While it is true that the doctor had written #30 on the prescription with 5 refills, the customer can buy as few or as many covered in that prescription as long as it is not a controlled substance. And if I was going to try to rip WalMart off for some pills, let me just say that it would not have been the cheap ones, but the ones that cost $70 a month.

She finally came back to the phone and told me to bring "it" back and she would fix it. I had just driven 46 miles to get them and was loathe to hop into a car that had already sent me into a panic attack with gear issues and go back over what amounted to less than $10 worth of something. I simply told her that I was not willing to do that and she handed the phone to the other pharmacist who verified the name and RX# and my address. They are sending the other 60 to me.

A cup of tea, a happy light and a fire. I am feeling better.

Angels Watching Over Me

I am back ..... almost normal again. My recent vacation from sanity was enlightening. I chose not to blog, as I tended to be viciously honest. My meds have been adjusted and I am feeling much better. Thanks for all the e-mails of concern.

This is not my first experience with my disease. I am bi-polar. They have some very effective drugs for this condition nowadays. The stigma that used to be affiliated with mental defects no longer exists (does it?) and I am happy to embrace my defect. Well, maybe not happy .......... but resigned and grateful to recognize what is happening and be able to seek help.

I am not 100% yet, but I can cope now until my brain decides to play nice. My friends and family have rallied round me, and shielded me from the world while I recover. It has been nice to be cocooned here in my lair. I have mastered spider solitaire and spent many hours shopping on-line. I shop to my heart's content, then delete the entire thing. I have noticed that even in fantasy shopping, I still looked for bargains. I found that to be interesting. Nothing is quite so satisfying as a good deal.

So today as I was half listening to an infomercial hawking a handy dandy slicer I heard them say it had a handicapped container. Really, that couldn't be right ...... I turned my attention to the TV and sure enough there stood a woman slicing a 5 lb. bag of potatoes ............. blindfolded. Really. I hit the button on the remote and backed it up. Why would you want to prepare food with blindfold on? And yet there she was pumping that lever and feeding another potato onto the slicer. Is this why the word "handicapped" was used? Was she going to fill a pan with oil and fry those slices blindfolded?

I had heard correctly. They did say handicapped . But they were saying handy capped. Like I said handy dandy. This handy dandy container had a handy cap. Poor choice of wording, I suppose. I wonder if anyone else heard it the way I did? Maybe they should have used the word "lid" instead of "cap". I wonder if I could get a job editing commercials ............ I wonder if I am as well as I think I am? Good thing my angels are still watching over me.